This week is National Road Safety Week. Traffic injury is the biggest killer of Australian children under 15 and the second-biggest killer of all Australians aged between 15 and 24 (NRSW). 50 people walking are killed on NSW roads and streets every year and this figure is trending up. Many of these people are killed waiting at signals or taking risks to cross streets because signal wait times are too long.

Traffic signals are quite literally at the intersection of our urban spaces, transport policy, and pedestrian safety. I wrote directly to the Secretary of Transport for NSW (TfNSW) Josh Murray “on behalf of WalkSydney to request that Transport for NSW make SCATS [Sydney Coordinated Adaptive Traffic System] traffic signal phasing data publicly accessible in the interest of transparency, better planning, and inclusive transport outcomes”. My letter was co-signed by the President of WalkSydney (Tegan Mitchell) and President of Better Streets (Sara Stace).

On the 13th of May I received a reply to my request, which along with factual errors and misrepresentations stated:

Transport also does not plan to establish a scheme or arrangement for the publication of that data for the NSW road network and signalised intersections.

Brenda Hoang (Deputy Secretary, Finance Technology and Commercial Division, Group Chief Financial Officer, TfNSW), on behalf of the Secretary for Transport (Josh Murray)
Letter (OTS25/01450) dated 2025-05-09 (received 2025-05-13)

This blog post reproduces my response letter in full (which corrects factual errors and misrepresentations in the response I received) along with my initial request letter and TfNSW’s initial response. I hope you may learn something interesting from them.

Data recently presented to the TfNSW Active Transport Community of Practice (2024-06-20) documented higher rates of unsafe crossing in the City of Sydney due to dangerously long waits at signals, aligning with international evidence (Martin, A. (2006. Factors influencing pedestrian safety: a literature review (No. PPR241). Wokingham, Berks: TRL (Transport for London), Baass K G (1989). Review of European and North American practice of pedestrian signal timing. Prepared for RTAC Annual Conference Calgary, Alberta.)

People walking and using other active modes in NSW often face long and unpredictable waits at intersections. This is well understood – a 2020 report by Gehl Architects on Sydney stated “The reduction in waiting times has improved pedestrian amenity, however further improvements can be made”. Improvement in priority for pedestrians is listed as action 7 of focus area 5.1 of the current TfNSW Active Transport Strategy:

Action 7: Improve priority for walking trips in centres, towns and villages, such as reallocating road space to widen footpaths and providing more frequent and longer duration pedestrian crossing phases at traffic signals.

Action 7, of focus area 5.1 “Enable 15-minute neighbourhoods”, current TfNSW Active Transport Strategy 2022 (pg 14). Listed as an “Immediate actions (completed or initiated within 5 years)”

Understanding signal timing is crucial for the public to evaluate progress toward this action, to evaluate signal timing against the City of Sydney’s excellent target of “A maximum wait time at intersections of 45 seconds for people walking with a target of 30 seconds” and to assess compliance with the updated mandatory TfNSW Road User Space Allocation Policy.

Without access to data, the public cannot learn whether outcomes are improving.

I have previously written on the design and politics of traffic signals and how they affect people walking and riding in Sydney:

• Sydney CBD is bringing back pedestrian “beg buttons” (2022-12-19)
• Mapping pedestrian traffic light timing in Sydney, Australia (2023-06-12)
  • Better Intersections, crowdsourced signal timing map (2023-06-12 – present)
    • Coverage on ABC News
    • Linked from the Sydney Morning Herald
• Shining a Light on the Traffic Signals of Sydney (2023-07-10)
• Preliminary analysis of Better Intersections data (2024-07-01)
• Why Did the Chicken Catch the Metro? Because It Was Faster Than Crossing the Road… (2024-08-22)

Table of contents

WalkSydney Letter, 2025-05-14

(Original letter PDF: https://files.jakecoppinger.com/tfnsw-open-signal-data/2025-05-14 Reply – Outgoing corro to Brenda Hoang (TfNSW) SCATS data release.pdf)

2025-05-14 

Transport for NSW 
231 Elizabeth Street 
Sydney NSW 2000 

brenda.hoang@transport.nsw.gov.au 

cc. 

Josh Murray (josh.murray@transport.nsw.gov.au)
Roy Brown (roy.brown@transport.nsw.gov.au) 

Re: Public Access to SCATS Traffic Signal Phasing Data 

Dear Brenda Hoang, 

Thank you for your considered response. 

I appreciate your open invitation of further correspondence and for myself, WalkSydney, and other interested parties to meet with your Sydney Coordinated Adaptive Traffic System (SCATS) team. 

I have a strong appreciation of the challenging work undertaken by the TfNSW Network Operations team in designing, operating and managing the complex trade-offs required to serve the diverse stakeholders of signal timing (which I have previously stated publicly). 

However, we are disappointed to learn that “Transport also does not plan to establish a scheme or arrangement for the publication of that data for the NSW road network and signalised intersections.”, and we request a reconsideration of this position. 

1. What We Are Requesting 

We are requesting that Transport for NSW (TfNSW) begin regularly publishing historical signal phasing data – for example, on a monthly basis – for signalised intersections across NSW. 

Specifically, we seek the cycle time of each intersection, for each cycle that runs, and the time allocated to each signal phase. 

We do not request: 

• Traffic volume data 
• Interpretations or analysis of the data 
• Guarantees of data accuracy 
• Internal decision-making rationale 
• Algorithmic details or communication protocols 
• Technical drawings of physical infrastructure 

This is about transparency, not intellectual property or cybersecurity. The data we request consists of outcomes, not inputs or methods. 

2. Why you should release this information 

Transparency and accountability are cornerstones of good governance. The public has already paid for the infrastructure and expertise that generates this data. The information belongs to the people of NSW. There is a strong public interest in understanding how traffic signals affect mobility and safety – there have been several recent media articles, including from the Sydney Morning Herald and ABC. 

People walking and using other active modes often face long and unpredictable waits at intersections. Improvement in priority for pedestrians is an action 7 of a focus area 5.1 of the current TfNSW Active Transport Strategy: 

Improve priority for walking trips in centres, towns and villages, such as reallocating road space to widen footpaths and providing more frequent and longer duration pedestrian crossing phases at traffic signals.

Action 7, of focus area 5.1 “Enable 15-minute neighbourhoods”, TfNSW Active Transport Strategy (pg 14) 

The updated TfNSW Road User Space Allocation Policy states it must be followed when allocating temporal road user space: 

This policy sets out the mandatory principles and requirements Transport staff must follow when allocating physical and temporal road user space safely and equitably to support the movement of people and goods and place objectives. (emphasis mine) 

Transport must allocate road user space based on the following principles:
…
– allocate road user space based on the network vision and road functions, considering all road users in order of: 

1. walking (including equitable access for people of all abilities)
2. cycling (including legal micro-mobility devices) 
3. public transport 
4. freight and servicing 
5. point to point transport 
6. general traffic and on-street parking for private motorised vehicles. 

Signals are explicitly defined as in scope for temporal allocation: 

Temporal allocation: Optimising how space is allocated throughout the day, week or year. This includes the dynamic control of space, access, level of priority, speed and kerbside use through signage, signals, and other technology  

(7. Definitions, pg. 6. TfNSW RUSAP. Emphasis mine.) 

We are grateful that, as you stated TfNSW “…remain committed to our purpose to make NSW a better place to live, work and visit by delivering a safe, reliable and sustainable transport network”. 

It is currently the National Road Safety Week. We note that data recently presented to the TfNSW Active Transport Community of Practice (2024-06-20) documented higher rates of unsafe crossing in the City of Sydney due to dangerously long waits at signals, aligning with international evidence (Martin, A. (2006. Factors influencing pedestrian safety: a literature review (No. PPR241). Wokingham, Berks: TRL (Transport for London), Baass K G (1989). Review of European and North American practice of pedestrian signal timing. Prepared for RTAC Annual Conference Calgary, Alberta.) 

50 people are killed on NSW roads and streets every year, this figure is trending up – and many of these people are killed waiting at signals or taking risks to cross streets because signal wait times are too long. 

We believe releasing such signal timing data is in the public interest of transparency, better planning, and inclusive transport outcomes which could reduce harm and assist the shift to sustainable modes. 

Understanding signal timing is crucial for the public to evaluate progress toward action 7 of focus area 5.1 of the TfNSW Active Transport Strategy, and assess compliance with the mandatory Road User Space Allocation Policy. Without access to data, the public cannot assess whether outcomes are improving. 

3. Factual errors and misrepresentations 

4. Further context of Australian precedent of releasing open signal data 

WA Main Roads previously published a real-time websocket feed of signal timing. I understand that in December 2024 they were undertaking a significant upgrade of their IT infrastructure and systems. To continue to support the SCATS Open Data Feed, an upgrade and migration of all its components would be necessary. Such a solution was deemed to be time-consuming, costly, require a complete re-write of the underlying solution and result in ongoing overhead. 

I proposed that WA Main Roads consider providing regular monthly exports of the previously streamed real-time signal data. This approach offers lower ongoing maintenance than a live feed while preserving the public benefits of transparency and improved planning. 

By 2025-01-21, the WA Main Roads Open Data Governance Committee had decided to pursue this suggestion, initially through monthly data dumps, with the potential for automated weekly updates in future. By 2025-04-07 they had published over 8GB of GeoParquet data – an impressive 76 days later. I greatly appreciate their leadership in open data governance and technical excellence. 

I look forward to your response. 

Kind Regards, 
Jake Coppinger 
on behalf of WalkSydney 

Jointly signed by 

– Tegan Mitchell, President of WalkSydney 

– Sara Stace, President of Better Streets 

WalkSydney is the peak body advocating for walking in the Greater Sydney Region. 

WalkSydney’s vision is for walking to be the first choice for short trips around Sydney. 

WalkSydney has three key asks: 

• 30 km/hr urban default speed 

• streets that are safe and easy to cross 

• pedestrian priority over cars 

WalkSydney is a member of the Better Streets coalition, an collection of hundreds of community organisations advocating for better streets in Australia 

TfNSW Letter OTS25/01450 (received 2025-05-13)

(Original letter PDF: https://files.jakecoppinger.com/tfnsw-open-signal-data/OTS25_01450 – SCATS traffic signal phasing data release.pdf)

Transport for NSW

Mr. Jake Coppinger

The WalkSydney Organisation
Level 4, 68 Wentworth Ave
SURRY HILLS NSW 2010

Via email jake@jakecoppinger.com
OTS25/01450

Re: SCATS traffic signal phasing data release 9 May 2025

Dear Mr. Coppinger,

Thank you for your recent correspondence to the Secretary of Transport for NSW and for sharing your advocacy on behalf of people walking and riding in Greater Sydney. In this instance the Secretary has asked me to respond to you on his behalf.

Currently, Transport for NSW (Transport) does not routinely publish traffic signal phase and timing information. Transport also does not plan to establish a scheme or arrangement for the publication of that data for the NSW road network and signalised intersections.

The Sydney Coordinated Adaptive Traffic System (SCATS), which controls signal phase selection and timing for each individual intersection, operates as a coordinated and adaptive system. This means that each intersection has varying timing and phase selections that are based on the vehicle and pedestrian demand, the time of day, and the minimum safety parameters of each intersection in the NSW road network. With more than 4,500 intersections, configurations change minute by minute as each phase is altered, extended, shortened or skipped in response to real time demands. SCATS uses machine learning principles to update the timing and phase selections in real-time to optimise traffic flow. Any publication of this data will be outdated by the time it is released.

The relationship between the volume, vehicle and pedestrian demand and responsive signal phase and timing is governed by SCATS central optimisation algorithm and by any manual interventions or configurations performed by Transport road network operators. As such, the optimisation algorithm and related information form part of the intellectual property at the core of the SCATS product and is considered commercially sensitive information.

Additionally, for cybersecurity reasons, SCATS cannot provide detailed information on how the algorithm-driven optimisation messages are communicated to the physical infrastructure. That information is kept confidential to protect the safety critical systems that control the signal phases and timing in NSW intersections from cyberattacks.

We also note that the last published set of ‘signals data’ from WA Main Roads, a customer of SCATS, is from October 2023. As such, it is historical and not maintained as a real-time or near real-time dataset.

Data on traffic volumes is available for a cost-recovery fee from Transport. If you are interested in a traffic signal report, data or service, please complete the relevant form, by following the link below. You can also view the schedule of fees for specialist services provided by the Network Operations on the form page.

Traffic signal request form – https://www.transport.nsw.gov.au/trafficsignal

We remain committed to our purpose to make NSW a better place to live, work and visit by delivering a safe, reliable and sustainable transport network. To that end, we welcome further correspondence
and share an open invitation for The WalkSydney, Mr. Coppinger and any other interested members to meet with our SCATS team and further understand the system and the way Transport applies its
capabilities.

If you have any further questions, please contact Roy Brown, Director Technology SCATS from our Finance, Technology & Commercial Division at Roy.Brown@transport.nsw.gov.au.

I hope this has been of assistance.
Sincerely,
Brenda Hoang

Deputy Secretary, Finance Technology and Commercial Division
Group Chief Financial Officer

Cc:
Roy Brown Roy.Brown@transport.nsw.gov.au
Tegan Mitchell, President of WalkSydney tegan.mitchell@walksydney.org
Sara Stace, President of Better Streets sstace@betterstreets.org.au

OFFICIAL
231 Elizabeth St, Sydney NSW 2000
(02) 8202 2200
PO BOX K659 HAYMARKET NSW 1240

WalkSydney Letter 2025-04-16

(Original letter PDF: https://files.jakecoppinger.com/tfnsw-open-signal-data/Outgoing corro to TfNSW Secretary SCATS data release.pdf)

Secretary 
Transport for NSW 
Level 31, 320 Pitt Street 
Sydney NSW 2000 

josh.murray@transport.nsw.gov.au 

Dear Mr Murray, 

Re: Public Access to SCATS Traffic Signal Phasing Data 

We are writing on behalf of WalkSydney to request that Transport for NSW make SCATS traffic signal phasing data publicly accessible in the interest of transparency, better planning, and inclusive transport outcomes. 

As you know, the Sydney Coordinated Adaptive Traffic System (SCATS) plays a central role in managing vehicle movements across Sydney’s road network. However, despite its scale and impact, there is limited public visibility into how signal phasing decisions are made, particularly in relation to how these choices affect people walking, riding, and accessing public transport. 

In contrast, the Western Australian Government has taken a significant step forward by publishing SCATS signal phasing data online — free and accessible to all. This openness supports evidence-based advocacy, allows communities and researchers to understand trade-offs, and ensures accountability for how public infrastructure serves all users of the street network. We believe signal timing should be as public as a train or bus timetable. 

We believe similar access in New South Wales would be an important step toward aligning with Government commitments to Vision Zero, Net Zero, and modal shift. 40% of people in NSW don’t have a driver licence, and more than that don’t drive, but we don’t have those stats. 

Right now, the needs of people walking and riding are not meaningfully represented in the SCATS framework. Advocates and planners lack the information needed to make the case for safer, more equitable signal timing — especially for children, older adults, people with disabilities and everyone in between.  

We understand from conversations with TfNSW staff that there is a historic reason for SCATS data being charged – and that was to suppress the number of requests and therefore administration costs, in an era before the Open Data Hub. We believe this is no longer valid, as it places an unfair administrative and financial cost on the public, compared to providing the data on the portal. 

We therefore respectfully request that Transport for NSW: 

1. Provide public access to SCATS traffic signal phasing data across the network, or 

2. Publish a roadmap outlining how and when this data will be made available, and 

3. Engage with advocates and accessibility groups on opportunities to make SCATS more responsive to the needs of vulnerable and active transport users. 

We would welcome the opportunity to discuss this further and work collaboratively to ensure our traffic signal system reflects the priorities of a modern, inclusive transport network. 

Yours sincerely, 
Jake Coppinger 
on behalf of WalkSydney 

Jointly signed by 

– Tegan Mitchell, President of WalkSydney 

– Sara Stace, President of Better Streets 

WalkSydney is the peak body advocating for walking in the Greater Sydney Region. 

WalkSydney’s vision is for walking to be the first choice for short trips around Sydney. 

WalkSydney has three key asks: 

• 30 km/hr urban default speed 

• streets that are safe and easy to cross 

• pedestrian priority over cars 

WalkSydney is a member of the Better Streets coalition, an collection of hundreds of community organisations advocating for better streets in Australia

The post No Signal for Pedestrian Safety: TfNSW Refuses Signal Data During National Road Safety Week first appeared on Jake Coppinger.

See comments below, on Mastodon, Hacker News (51 comments), or LinkedIn (22 comments, 278 likes, 32k views)

Transport for NSW, the government agency which controls traffic signal timing in Sydney and elsewhere in NSW, has an excellent stated goal of increasing walking and cycling trips – and reducing pedestrian wait times at intersections.

However, there is no public data on traffic light timing in Sydney or NSW.

In the absence of traffic light timing data, and as we hold hope for it to become publicly available; the aim of Better Intersections is to crowdsource measurements and inform where positive changes could be made. You can add data yourself via a simple Google Form, and instructions are on the website about page.

Table of Contents

Better Intersections is a tool to record and visualise timing details for pedestrian and bicycle signals. It’s focused on Sydney & NSW, Australia, but is adaptable for anywhere in the world. This website is open source on Github (contributions welcome!), and the data is under an open license (ODbL license).

If you have ideas for improvements, please create a Github issue, comment below, email me at jake@jakecoppinger.com or message me on Mastodon (@jakecoppinger@aus.social).

It’s a work in progress! I’ve tinkered on it for a few afternoons and started working on it about two weeks ago.

This website bridges the excellent TfNSW Active Transport policy guidelines and pedestrians on the street themselves, allowing people on foot (and bicycle) to see their experience represented.

Why does the timing of pedestrian signals matter?

Transport for NSW, the government agency which controls traffic signal timing in Sydney and elsewhere in NSW, has an excellent stated goal of increasing walking and cycling trips – and reducing pedestrian wait times at intersections.

However, there is no public data on traffic light timing in Sydney or NSW.

In the absence of traffic light timing data, and as we hold hope for it to become publicly available; the aim of this project is to crowdsource measurements and inform where positive changes could be made.

This website bridges the excellent TfNSW Active Transport policy guidelines and pedestrians on the street themselves, allowing people on foot (and bicycle) to see their experience represented.

Increasing pedestrian priority and providing crossing opportunities at the right locations and along desire lines, reduces the risk of pedestrian injury at intersections by encouraging safer behaviours. Transport is currently rolling out measures at intersections to improve pedestrian priority in areas of high pedestrian activity. These measures may include automation of pedestrian crossings, reduced pedestrian wait times, provision of pedestrian crossings on missing legs and kerb ramps, where applicable.

— TfNSW Active Transport Strategy, page 30. Emphasis added.

Research has shown that 30 seconds is the longest a pedestrian will wait at a signalised crossings before attempting to cross against the ‘red man’. (Martin, A., 2006. Factors influencing pedestrian safety: a literature review (No. PPR241). Wokingham, Berks: TRL (Transport for London.)

From the above report:

Hunt, Lyons and Parker (2000) state that ‘Although no clear relationship has been established between pedestrian delay and casualties, a more balanced and responsive approach to the allocation of time at Pelican/Puffin crossings has the potential to make a substantial contribution to a decrease in pedestrian casualties as well as improving pedestrian amenity’. They point out that because pedestrians are more likely to become impatient when a red man continues to be shown during periods of low vehicle flow, the reduction of unnecessary delay for pedestrians should encourage pedestrians to use crossings correctly and reduce risk taking.

In 2020, people driving vehicles killed 138 pedestrians on Australian roads (Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Communications (2021) Fact sheet: Vulnerable road users, National Road Safety Strategy.)

But isn’t traffic light timing variable?

Sydney uses a system called Sydney Coordinated Adaptive Traffic System (SCATS) to control traffic signals, which makes use of many data feeds to control timing data.

Neither the inputs used, or the algorithm used to weigh the input data is public (as far as I know). This crowdsourced method of discrete measurements provides shows the output of the black box. In the case of outliers, multiple measurements (at different times of day/week) can be used to determine if the timing is variable.

Gehl Architects have a great methodology for measuring the overall impact of traffic light delays on pedestrians. At its most basic you walk along a street with two stopwatches;

• one you pause only when you’re walking;
• one you pause only when you’re waiting at a traffic light.

Divide one by the other at the end, and you have a single number that quantifies pedestrian delay walking along a street.

– Public spaces & public life: Sydney 2020, Gehl Architects, pg 142

The limitations of this method are that

• it cannot inform the exact problematic intersections;
• paths must be long enough to gather a large enough sample size to be statistically significant.

I’ve experimented with automating this method by recording a GPX (GPS) trace with a phone, uploading that file and getting a number instantly. Unfortunately the urban canyon effect (GPS signal loss caused by tall buildings) makes this method unreliable in cities, even with the remarkable sensor fusion on modern phones.

As with any of my projects, I am always open to collaboration. If you have any ideas, iterations or improvements, please drop me a line!

Technical details

This is a fairly simple Typescript app created using Create React App that I built in a few afternoons – please don’t consider it my finest code!

It is a static React app hosted on Cloudflare pages, and uses Mapbox GL JS to display the map (but could be easily updated to use Maplibre GL JS).

Google Sheets is treated as a backend (for simplicity using a Google Form for submissions), and the app makes use of OpenStreetMap node IDs as primary keys for intersections. This is definitely suboptimal but it’s quick to build – ideally I’d have a more custom form that is easier to use and doesn’t require a Google account – however using Google accounts for the form is a quick and easy method of minimising spam (and making it easy to identify) remove spam from a single person).

The OpenStreetMap API is used for looking up coordinates of OSM nodes and finding adjacent ways. There is currently one request per intersection made – this will not scale and I’ll likely need to cache the JSON (or hit an Overpass Turbo server instead).

The code is fully covered by Typescript types but doesn’t (yet?) have unit tests – it’s very easy to work with if you’re interested in tinkering with it!

Possible further work

• Adding a simplified version of the form
• Support OSM ways as the primary key rather than just nodes (useful for crossings across divided carriageways with multiple traffic light nodes per crossing leg)
• Tagging state roads and looking if these have longer wait times on average (probably)
• Scatter plot of crossing times vs number of lanes (as rough proxy for traffic volume)
• “sparkline” or other graphs of measurements for a given intersection
• Thinking about how to record relationships between intersections (ie. green wave/lack of green wave for pedestrians)
  • Using YOLOv3 or another off the shelf commodity computer vision model for recognising green/flashing red/red traffic lights for algorithm measuring cycle times

Related organisations

If you support better conditions for pedestrians and cyclists in Sydney/NSW, consider joining BetterStreets or 30 Please.

The post Mapping pedestrian traffic light timing in Sydney, Australia first appeared on Jake Coppinger.